


Falling in Black

by patbeck



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Kidnapping, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Mental Anguish, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Other, POV Keith (Voltron), POV Lance (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Protective Lance (Voltron), Protective Shiro (Voltron), Sad Shiro (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-10-29 18:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10859667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patbeck/pseuds/patbeck
Summary: In an answer to a distress call at the far end of space, Keith discovers that even well into his teenage years it can be a real and valid response to be afraid of the dark. And as the darkness threatens to envelope the paladins of Voltron, they're forced to question their own morals of what it means to be a team.





	1. The Distress Call

Keith was used to the darkness.

It was everywhere, after all. From the pitch black of his bedroom late at night, to the cold, dark expanse of space, and even to the brief blackness his mind goes under when he falls asleep. The darkness was everywhere, so he had no need to fear it.

But then it all started with a distress call while they were in the castle, preparing for wherever the galaxy would send them to. Of all of the time they had spent in space, distress calls were normal. They were the defenders of the universe, right? Of course people would come to them for help in times of need. So, naturally, they came to see what the fuss was all about.

Heading through the wormhole, they arrived at an asteroid spotted with different sorts of buildings, all metallic and scrappy in design. Though, strangely enough, from the looks of it, there wasn’t much activity going on in it.

“Is it just me, or does this place give me some creepy vibes?” Hunk fretted. “I mean, where is everyone?”

“I can say it’s no surprise that this asteroid’s empty,” Coran mused, checking his scanners. “After all, we’re in the Callisto System, home of planet Dreva. They were formerly known for experimenting with the resources in their system for engineering.”

Pidge cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, but if that’s the case, then why aren’t there any engineers on it?”

“When news of the Galra Empire attacking nearby systems reached Dreva, they cut off all of their communications in the universe. No one heard a word from them in years,” Coran twirled his moustache in thoughtfulness. “Not a peep, but when Devrite refugees came pouring in on other planets, it became known that their government shut down all engineering projects all over the system, their main source of economics. It was no surprise that the starving Devrites had to relocate. As far as I’m concerned, the planet itself may well be empty.”

“Creepy…” Lance muttered.

“We might as well check for anyone left on this colony,” Allura said. “This wouldn’t be the first time we found natives staying behind in abandoned colonies, unwilling to abandon their homes.”

The ship flew into orbit, and as soon as the paladins got in the lions in the hangar, they were deployed and they landed by a small shack. At first glance, some would assume the residents of it had been long gone. However, as soon as the paladins came out of the ship, a native rushed out of the shack, an alien with rough, blue skin, long, black hair, and white irises, dressed in rags. She immediately collapsed in front of Shiro, holding onto his legs for support.

“Oh, thank the Gods, someone answered my call,” she cried, nearly sobbing. “P-please, help my family, help me!”

Shiro stiffened uncomfortably at the sudden embrace, but with sympathy he carefully moved her hands out of the way and knelt down to meet with her at face-level. “Hey, calm down,” he spoke gently, putting his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. “Tell me what’s wrong, what happened to your family?”

She hiccuped before continuing, “w-we thought we were safe to come back, our colonies had been abandoned for years so the Galra couldn’t have known someone would come back. B-but a decade after we settled, my uncle moved out on our only shuttle without a word spoken to us, and he must have told them of my father’s attempts to revitalize our planet’s technology. B-because soon after they came with their s-ships.” She stopped to catch her breath, she was becoming hysteric. “T-they t-took my entire f-family captive, but I-I was the only one to escape!”

Shiro looked back at the team, which had grown solemn with discomfort at seeing this woman in so much distress, then looked back to her and comforted her. “We’ll help you get back your family, but do you have any idea where they could be?”

She paused, most likely to gather her thoughts, then she replied. “They t-took my family to the tallest building in the north sect. They’re forcing them to build our technology for t-them.”

“Do you know how strong the security is? How many Galra there are?”

She shrugged and looked away. “N-not much, our colony has been long abandoned and forgotten, so they’ve assumed no one could possibly breach their experiments.” The alien looked at Shiro again eagerly. “B-but I know you can save them! You’ll help me, righ?”

“Of course,” he smiled, then got up and spoke into the speaker connecting him to the castle. “Coran, do you have any data on the tallest building in the north sect?”

“Gimme a tick!” Coran’s voice reverberated in the speaker. “We did a quick scan of the building. There are about twenty Galra in it, two by the entrance, eight in the first floor, and ten on the last floor. I’ve detected about five Devrites on the last floor as well!”

“Anything on how far it is?”

“It’s quite some distance from where you landed, you may have to ride your lions to get a little closer.”

“Alright,” Shiro looked back at the others. “Paladins! Get in your lions, this may be a quick mission but we still have to keep our guards up.”

The paladins nodded, and they headed back up into their lions, Shiro taking the Devrite with him. And soon enough, they took off and went to the northern sect.

“Ugh, I don’t like this,” Lance grumbled over the speaker. “The last thing I want to do is deal with another sketchy, deserted asteroid.”

“You’re just mad that on the last one, your girlfriend turned out to be a con-artist,” Hunk retorted.

“She nearly stole my lion!” Lance exclaimed. “Isn’t that enough to drive us away from any sketchy asteroid or con-artist.”

“Lance, that girl was practically sobbing,” Pidge shot back. “I highly doubt she’s trying to trick us like the last one.”

“What I’m more concerned about is how easy this seems,” Keith commented sourly. “Only twenty Galra on some abandoned colony? This seems suspicious.”

“See? Even Keith agrees with me!” Lance pointed out.

“Whether this is a trick or not, there are innocent civilians who need us,” Shiro explained to the rest of the team. “We’ll see it for ourselves once we get there.”

Eventually, they landed a little bit away from the building and exited their lions, the Devrite taking the lead as they followed her. The building looked like a tall stack of scrapped metal and was big enough to see in the distance.

“So, what is it that’s so important that your father’s building that the Galra decided to snatch him?” Lance asked.

The Devrite gaped at him nervously. “We don’t usually discuss our trade with foreigners,” she murmured.

“Well, it could give us an idea of how serious it is?” Pidge suggested. “I mean, this is a ten thousand year old empire taking interest in a small family, could be something big?”

I’ll go as far as to tell you we make enhancements,” she dismissed her irritably. “I’d rather not delve into it any more.”

“Harsh,” Pidge muttered to herself, not audible enough for the Devrite to hear.

“Wait,” the alien paused behind a rock formation some distance from the building, the paladins stopped in their tracks in response. They were close enough to vaguely see the entrance, which sure enough, had two Galra soldiers guarding the entrance, their postures slack and uncaring. They clearly didn’t feel anything to worry about from being on a deserted asteroid.

“Okay. we need to make this quick, in and out,” Shiro explained to the team. “I’ll take down the guards, and the rest of us will split into teams to scout the first floor.”

“Dibs on Hunk!” Pidge piped up.

“Oh, come on, you really gonna leave with Keith?” Lance moaned.

“Well, you’re not so fun either,” Keith scoffed.

“Well, you’re even less fun!” Lance shot back, getting in his face.

“Couldn’t you just pair up with one of them to make them stop arguing?” Hunk asked Pidge.

“Hey, I’m not gonna be stuck with the child who complains on a car trip and the obligatory emo kid here,” Pidge smirked. “Besides, they’re perfect together.”

“Guys, enough,” Shiro sternly said. “You watch her while I go take them down.”

Shiro rushed up to the guards, his prosthetic hand glowing purple, and the guards soon got wind of him but didn’t become prepared for attack until it was too late. He knocked them both out, and the entrance was free for anyone to enter. He beckoned for them to follow suit. The paladins quickly moved in, the alien following them, and she stuck behind with Shiro as the paladins all split up.

“We’ll take the east corridor, you guys go up north,” Pidge ordered them.

“We’ll go up the west wing,” Shiro added.

Keith and Lance nodded, and they moved up ahead while the rest of the team moved in their respective areas. For once, as they moved on ahead, they didn’t have their usual quarrels, but Keith knew why. They both were the first to voice their discomfort with this operation, and Keith still couldn’t help but get this gut feeling that something was off. He was sure Lance felt the same.

They stopped at the end of the corridor, where a door blocked their way. Keith could hear footsteps in the next room, and knowing what this meant, he spoke up.

“You cover me while I attack,” Keith whispered.

Lance nodded and winked. Keith rolled his eyes and put his hand on the doorknob, signaling to Lance with his fingers.

‘One.’

‘Two.’

‘Three.’

Keith burst into the room and knocked down the first Galra soldier with his blade. As the Galra soldiers took their time to react and fire, Lance shot down the ones that were close enough to harm Keith, and soon the room was clear.

Lance walked into the room to admire the handiwork as Keith spoke into his speaker. “We found six Galra and took them down.”

“We only found one Galra,” Pidge replied.

“Same with us,” Shiro reported. “Looks like the first floor is clear.”

“Check it out,” Lance said, walking up to the staircase at the end of the room. “Guess we found the entrance to the next floor.”

“Roger, we’re coming in,” Shiro said.

“Same here!” Hunk replied.

It didn’t take long before the rest of the team came into the room, tip-toeing over the fallen Galra to make their way to the staircase.

“That was too easy,” Pidge muttered.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Keith said. “How do we know there isn’t a trap ahead of us?”

“There can’t be!” The Devrite suddenly blurted out.

The team stared at her in surprise.

“I mean…” Her cheeks turned blue with shame. “There s-shouldn’t be any traps! I don’t want getting my family back to be any harder than it should be!”

“None of us do,” Shiro said. “But Keith has a point. We’ll have to be more careful.”

Pidge took the first step up the staircase. “Well, Coran said the rest of them are on the last floor, right?” She reasoned, “I don’t think there should be much to distract us from checking for any traps on the way there.”

They all nodded and followed Pidge up the stairs. Once they reached the second floor it became known that within the wide corridor they first arrived in, it was nearly empty, save for the scraps that laid around. Yet despite this, Keith’s warnings made the group on edge. After all, the next staircase was only at the end of the room. It seemed like there was more than meets the eye. However, apart from the handful of soldiers that would come down every once in awhile to see what was going on, it was almost a breeze to get to the last floor. For the sake of safety, they paused at the door to the last room, everyone getting ready with their weapons brandished. At Shiro’s signal, they burst into the room, ready for whatever would meet them.

The last floor only contained one big room. There were metal scraps everywhere, the amount of it gradually building up as it got closer to a strange, mechanical, whirring machine. Its exterior was lumpy and shaky, rods protruding all over, and a male Devrite with a long, black beard was tinkering with it, his white eyes sagging from fatigue and fear. Behind him were several other Devrites holding onto each other as two Galra pointed their guns at them. The Devrite working with the machine looked up in reaction to the sudden intrusion, and his eyes widened when he saw the female Devrite.

“Alisse!” He exclaimed, rushing to her and embracing her tightly.

“Father!” She sobbed and held onto him. “Thank the Gods you’re safe!”

Despite the tender embrace, the paladins still had to embrace for the eventual attack by the Galra, five of which were left. Surprisingly, as they were quickly shot down or dealt with through other means, they didn’t put up much of a fight. They barely had any sort of defense or special attack. As the family reunited with each other with glee and relief, Keith couldn’t quite occupy himself with the touching scene as he was left with bewilderment. The Galra usually had a trick or two up their sleeve, right? But it all seemed so robotic, so formulaic. A quick ‘defeat the bad guy’ and a touching, emotional moment.

“Seriously? That’s it?” Keith muttered.

Pidge picked up on his comment. “What, you wanted more of a fight?”

“Not that,” he replied irritably. “I thought there’d be some sort of twist to this, a trap or something, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything else to this.”

“There doesn’t have to be some sort of plot twist to everything,” she commented. “Strange as it is, the universe ought to give us a break sometimes, right?”

Keith shrugged. Maybe he was all tense for nothing, maybe there didn’t have to be a reason for things to be easy. This wasn’t something he was used to, anyways.

“Thank you so much!” Alisse said in gratitude to the team. The paladins had finished coaxing the family to calm down and realize they were safe. They still stood huddled next to each other, but they regarded the paladins more warmly.

“Not a problem,” Shiro replied.

“It was nothing!” Lance said boastfully. “Next time you need help, you can call us anytime!”

“Well,” she twiddled her fingers nervously. “Could you...could you give us a ride back home? It was in the little shack you found me in, and it’s rather far…”

“Of course!” Shiro said.

After a brief discussion of who went with who, Keith agreed to take Alisse on his lion since Shiro already took two of the Devrites on his lion. He found the flight to be a little bit awkward, as it seemed Alisse trusted Shiro more than him, so she ended up more reserved during the ride. Despite the awkwardness, he found his tension to ease quite a bit, and got used to the silence.

There was a crack in the sky, and a shadow poured over Keith’s lion, as well as the rest of the land. When he looked up to see what was going on, his breath caught in his throat, and the sirens in his head blared. There was Zarkon’s ship and his fleet looming in the sky, an omen to the paladins and what they stood for.

Alisse started sobbing. “I’m sorry...I’m so sorry…”


	2. The Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The betrayal of Alisse has exposed the paladins to Zarkon's fleet. As they attempt to fight them off by forming Voltron, Keith senses that it would be against their best interests to form Voltron, especially when it turns out that the Galra have a trip up their sleeve.

As the paladins rushed to drop the Devrites at their home to prepare for the attack, Keith found himself struggling to contain his rage.

“What do you mean you’re sorry!?” Keith snarled. “You called them here!?”

She slowly nodded, her expression deep with shame. “They s-said they’d release my family if I c-called you here,” she choked. “T-They knew you’d be here if I released that distress signal…”

“So, this whole thing was a trap!” Keith growled.

“Keith, calm down,” Shiro spoke over the speaker. “I’ll handle this once we drop them off.”

They eventually arrived at the shack, the Devrites all piling out from the lions and huddling together. It was clear from the way they trembled and stared at the sky, mouths agape, that they were deeply troubled by the oncoming war in the sky.

“Everyone, take shelter,” Shiro ordered them. “This could get messy.”

“I’m so sorry,” Alisse cried to him as tears streamed down her face.

But Shiro regarded her more coldly and said nothing, her betrayal hitting him as much as it did to Keith. Knowing him, Keith assumed he might’ve had the least bit of sympathy for her, but it was hard for him to tell. Frankly, he wasn’t used to seeing Shiro like this.

He turned around to face his team. “Paladins! Get to your lions, we have to form Voltron!”

They nodded and went back into their lions, the mechanics within them whirring as they flew back up into the air, out of the atmosphere, and into the pitch black void of space, where the Galra fleet met them. The lions gathered into a row, the black lion ahead of them. But before they could even begin to form Voltron, blasters from the main ship hit the blue lion and yellow lion, throwing them out of formation.

“They know when we’re gonna form Voltron, we can’t do it!” Lance exclaimed.

“We’ll have to stall them, catch them off-guard somehow before we do it,” Shiro responded.

The lions did everything they could to hold off the ships aiming at them, from blasting at them to equipping their jawblades to slice the ships and their blasters. But as they held off against the ships, Keith noticed that the ships they fought against were only a fraction of the fleet. The rest seemed to surround the lions and only fired at them to make sure they didn’t escape from their range. As the fighting ravaged on, Keith could feel unease creeping on his shoulders. It was as if the windows of the ships were eyes peering at him, knowledge within them that was hidden from him.

When the line of fire seemed to ease down considerably, Keith heard Shiro’s voice over the speaker. “Now’s the time, let’s form Voltron!”

Keith nodded, he was in the middle of blasting some cannons coming from the main ship and was about to use his jawblades on it, but he noticed from the main cannon there was a blast building up. Up until then, the main cannon hadn’t released any sort of attack against the lions. He found this suspicious enough, but since it was preparing to attack with a strange purple-lined black laser just as they were about to form Voltron, he could feel the hair on the back of his neck rising.

“Guys, something’s building up in the main cannon,” Keith pointed out.

“Whatever it is, we can handle it as Voltron, right?” Lance replied.

Keith didn’t budge from where he was, his unease grew at Lance’s mention of Voltron. Whatever it was that the Galra had in store, he didn’t think Voltron could handle it. In fact, he suspected Voltron being formed was exactly what they were waiting for. Why else would they stop the lions from forming Voltron when the cannon wasn’t ready to fire yet?

“We should get out of here,” he pressed on.

“Keith, if we don’t take care of this now, we’ll only get ambushed later,” Shiro told him.

“No, guys—“ Keith was about to continue, but as the lions prepared to get in formation, the cannon’s laser had already stopped growing, big enough to fire. And its line of fire was aimed at the green lion.

Pidge was in danger.

“Pidge!” He drove his lion as fast as he could to the green lion, immediately pushing her out of the line of fire. The laser suddenly grew again and blasted directly at Keith’s lion. As the brunt force of the impact pushed his lion violently and electricity pulsed all over his lion, he yelled from shock.

“Keith! Are you okay!?” Shiro’s voice blared over the speaker, but his voice came out almost garbled, difficult to understand.

Keith grunted in response, moving his lion around to recover from the impact. But he found that it was difficult to move it, the controls suddenly felt slow and sporadic in movement. What made it worse was that some of the controls were releasing electricity.

“Keith, your lion…!” Pidge’s garbled voice echoed in the speaker.

“What?” In the midst of the chaos, it was difficult to understand what she meant.

“I don’t know wha—that laser thing did, but—ur lion’s turning black!” Hunk added, concern trembling his voice.

“What, like Shir—lion?” Lance asked, like the rest of the team his voice was constantly cut with intermittent static due to the corrupted speakers.

Keith found that most of what he heard sounded like a garbled mess and could only tune it out as he tried to gain control of his lion. As he shakily moved it around, he glanced at the nearest Galra ship he happened to move his lion nearby, and looking at his reflection, he could see what his friend meant. Pitch black was enveloping his lion, already covering its tail and hind legs. His eyes widened with shock, and before he could comprehend it any further, his lion suddenly jerked away and violently pushed through whatever was in its way, be it the ships or small asteroids drifting in space.

Keith could only grunt and yell from the constant, violent shoving of him from within his lion. He had essentially lost all control of his lion, which constantly moved to try and shake off the darkness enveloping it, to no avail. It felt like the whole universe was in chaos, everything seemed to shake and pull at him and no one could possibly help him.

“Keith—” He could briefly hear Shiro’s voice call out his name among the incoherent static.

“Shiro!” Keith desperately called as he found a glimmer of hope. “Shiro! I can’t control my lion!”

“We’ll—out of—Galra—control!” Fragments of his sentence came through before the speakers descended into static again.

Keith slammed the control panel in frustration over the realization that he was all alone yet again. How long would the out of jerking around last? Would he have to get out of his lion to avoid the chaos? The stressful thoughts ran through his head over and over, his senses on high alert, until he heard a flicker of a switch behind him. When he turned around, he saw that the lights in the back had switched off on their own. His breath grew heavy, as he would assume that his lion was somehow turning off on its own were it not still moving around constantly, so the mystery of what the darkness inside meant bore heavy on his shoulders. It could only mean that whatever the Galra shot at his lion, it was spreading even more.

The lights flickered and more of them switched off, giving the illusion of a dark void filling up the lion, drawing closer and closer as it threatened to swallow Keith in it. In a flurry of panic, he pressed as many buttons as he could in a desperate attempt to regain control, but soon, too soon for him, the lights all went off. The darkness wrapped itself around Keith, making him feel as if there was no barrier between him and the dark space outside. With the static and blackness, his sense of isolation could only intensify.

Until he heard footsteps behind him.

He turned around to see who could possibly be in there with him, but he could only see pitch black when he looked behind him. It felt as if he were blind. His breath grew even more ragged at the possibility of there being a threat in there with him and him not even being able to see it. After a moment of staring into the abyss, not daring to pull his eyes away from the potential danger, he looked back at the stars outside, to see if any help would come. And in that moment, he could see the black lion in the distance. He wanted to speak into his speaker again, to see if he had any sort of hope of getting help from Shiro.

His helmet was ripped from his head, and ice-cold hands held an iron grip around his head, pushing him back into his chair. He yelped from shock and his heart practically lurched out of his chest from the sudden impact. His arms flailed around as he tried to get his hands on whoever was holding onto him, but he could barely move. It was like ice was digging into his skin and pulling him back, chains against his head. Sweat beaded down his head and grunted against the painful grip, it seemed that other than that he could do nothing.

Then, he heard a serpentine voice in the darkness, croaking with amusement and malice. “You’re mine now.”

Electricity pulsed through the hands and vibrated painfully against Keith’s skull. He screamed, screamed so hard he practically ravaged his throat, but no matter how much it hurt he couldn’t stop. As long as it felt like his brain was being forcefully pushed to the back of his skull and like his head was being torn apart, he’d keep screaming. But things could only get worse from then on as when he happened to glance down, he saw the same pitch black that took over his lion creep up from his feet and to his calves. He only felt panic, he only felt pain, and most of all, he only felt fear as he could feel himself lose control of his body. His mind started to grow fuzzy as the black reached his chest. His thoughts became disorganized, his memories became shady. The black finally covered his armor and the black made its presences in his eyes.

Keith was used to the darkness, he was used to it being everywhere. But in that moment, he was terrified of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao i guess keith's gonna sleep with a nightlight from now on amiright
> 
> so, uh, yeah. here's chapter 2. tell what u think of it in the comments, i really appreciate you reading! thank you!


	3. We Lost Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's lion has gone rogue, and the Galra have captured it. After the lost battle, Pidge decides to discover ways to save Keith and hopefully unite the team once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello all! sorry for the delay, but here's the next chapter! thank you for reading, and i hope you enjoy pidge's pov for the time being! ^^

Pidge could feel the blood in her veins turning cold as shivers ran up her spine. She was frozen, fixed to her spot, as she heard her teammate and friend’s distant screams over the speaker. It was terrifying, having a loved one be in mortal danger with you being able to do nothing about it. It didn’t help that Shiro’s voice would come in and interrupt the screams several times to call Keith’s name.

“Keith! Keith!” His frightened voice was desperate, he wanted as much as she did for the screaming to stop and for Keith to confirm that he was okay, just once.

“Oh my God,” Lance breathed.

Horror was spreading throughout the team, and it didn’t seem to stop until suddenly, Keith stopped screaming. Pidge’s stomach dropped when all she could hear was silence, somehow this was even worse than the screaming. Everyone went quiet like they were trying to match Keith’s silence, it was almost as if the entire universe held its breath.

“Keith…?” Hunk was the first to speak, his voice quivered with fear.

The formerly red lion stirred. It lunged at the black lion, its claws digging into the metal exterior. In a quick response, the black lion equipped its jawblade and slashed at its opponent, causing it to pull away. The dark lion roamed around the other lions like a predator stalking its prey, a low mechanical rumble indicated its growling.

"Keith! What are you doing!?" Lance shouted.

"That's not Keith!" Pidge pointed out. "Whatever that blast was, it made him lose control of his lion!"

The dark lion suddenly lunged at the yellow lion as it violently battered it with its claws. A blast began to form in its maw, but before it could begin to fire the yellow lion kicked it away with its hind legs.

"So, you're saying it infected it with Crazy Lion Syndrome, or something!?" Hunk retorted. "How's that even possible?"

"I don't know!" She exclaimed. "Whatever happened to it, we can figure it out if we can get Keith's lion back to the ship!"

"No way, not without figuring out what the hell's wrong with Keith!" Lance said angrily. "I'm getting in there with him!"

"Lance, no!" Shiro ordered him. "We don't know what's in there, we can't afford to lose you too!"

"What? And leave him there!?" Lance snapped back. "You said it yourself, we don't know what's in there with him! What if it—what if...!"

The dark lion blasted a laser in Lance's direction, to which he narrowly made it out of its way. It equipped its jawblade and went after the green lion next, slicing at the green lion's maw. Pidge moved back from the attack with only a scratch. But as the two lion heads moved close to each other, she could've sworn she saw a pair of eyes in there, glaring at her. But she shook off the thought, excusing it as only her anxiety toying with her. She couldn't have possibly seen his eyes from that great of distance through tinted windows, right?

"We'll figure it out once we get him in the ship," Shiro insisted. "For now, we have to wear out his lion until we can flank it and force it into the ship."

"Gotcha!" Pidge immediately shoved into the dark lion, knocking it out of balance. Hunk followed in turn, and since his lion was the bulkiest, the dark lion suffered more damage from his move. As they tried to surround Keith's lion, Pidge had to force the anxious thoughts out of her head to concentrate, to work for the sake of the team and for the sake of Keith. Keith was going to be fine, after all! He had to be fine, they were going to make it of this as a team! There was no way Keith could possibly be…

Pidge had to move out of the way to avoid a sudden laser blast from the dark lion, feeling the heat and damage of it even from within her lion. They could normally handle a single blast, but this? It was stronger than usual, it burned even more than normal. She practically had to squint or even look away as she watched the blast emit from the dark lion's jaws. It was as if they were dealing with a completely new lion. It was able to hold off all of the other lions with not only its agility but the power of its lasers.

"Paladins, get back in the ship!" Allura's voice suddenly emitted from the speakers, she sounded frantic.

"Not without Keith!" Shiro said determinedly.

"No, you have to get back inside the ship now!" she pressed on with urgency.

"But, we can't just leave him here!" Lance protested.

"The Galra are preparing another blast from the main cannon, it's almost ready!" Allura insisted. "If we don't leave now, the cannon could end up striking another one of your lions. We cannot afford to lose another lion!"

Allura was right, when Pidge looked back at Zarkon's ship, the laser in the main cannon was almost as big as it had gotten before. She wasn't certain how well the accuracy with that thing was, but she didn't want to find out. As she backed off from the dark lion, she noticed that the siege the Galra fleet had placed on the lions was considerably weaker. The ships practically backed off to watch the inner conflict between the lions. Even then, there was practically an impasse between the lions against the dark lion. If they tried to subdue the dark lion any further, the main cannon would be ready to attack, and they'd likely lose another lion.

"The princess has a point," Hunk said. "We should leave."

"Fine," Shiro replied. "But we're coming back for him!"

The lions backed off from the dark lion, which still acted aggressively, swiping at whatever lion was nearest and releasing more blasts. It followed the rest of lions until they reached the ship, which had been giving backup from a safe distance throughout the fight against the Galra fleet. From then on, the dark lion watched as the lions went back into their hangars. And as Pidge went back inside the ship, she glanced back at it. A shiver went down her spine when she noticed that the lion blended in with the legion of Galra ships. She went back inside, and the ship went through a wormhole to another part of space.

 

\---

 

The crew gathered around the control room, the air was heavy with tension and worry. Hunk sat down on the edge of one the bridge’s staircases, rubbing his temples, while Lance paced back and forth, ridden agitation and anxiety. Shiro stood to the side, his hand against the wall for support as his shoulders sagged. Pidge was in the corner, typing on her laptop to try and distract herself from the situation, but she couldn't help but look over at Shiro every once in awhile. It made her uneasy, seeing him like this. She knew how close he was with Keith, so his absence probably took a toll on him. He somehow looked older than he really was in this state, his eyes sagged with pensive thoughts, and his white hair didn't help. It was like looking at a car accident; it's so horrific, but you can't look away.

He suddenly looked up at Pidge, who looked down at her laptop in response. He was already upset enough, she didn't want to bother him by creepily staring at him.

"Shiro, what should we do first?" Allura broke the silence. She had been observing the universal star map with Coran on the bridge, looking for the whereabouts of Keith and his lion.

Shiro put his arm down and slowly approached her, rubbing the bridge of his nose from the exhaustion of stress. As the rest of the team watched him expectantly, he paused and stared downwards, deep in thought. Finally, he spoke. "We're getting Keith back."

"But how?" Hunk put his hands down and rested them on his knees. "The Galra already got his lion taken from their ship once. Now that they've got it back, they'll probably have it way more guarded!"

“And not to mention how we’re gonna get Keith back,” Lance added. “We already saved Allura from Zarkon once, and we barely made out of that alive! How are we gonna do it again?”

“If Keith’s even alive,” Coran muttered a little too loudly.

Lance pointed at him angrily. “Uh, Keith  _ is _ alive! You weren’t even there, so why would you say something like that?”

“Lance, calm down,” Shiro sternly told him, immediately causing him to shut his mouth. Coran looked at Lance and shrugged apologetically before Shiro continued. “It’s gonna be difficult, but once we figure out where Keith is, we’ll find a way to get him back.”

“Found him!” As if on cue, Allura announced her discovery. Everyone immediately came close to where she was to see the location she was pointing at on the map. “His lion seems to be on the dwarf planet Nekar.”

“Hm, makes sense,” Coran said. “Nekar is mainly used for military storage, though it’s strange they’d keep a lion of Voltron in a common storage unit.”

“Any specific military?” Pidge asked.

“I’d expect it to be dominated by Galra at this point, seeing how massive they are by now,” he replied.

“Then they’re definitely trying to lure us in,” she mused.

“This does sound like a potential ambush,” Shiro said.

“So, are we gonna get Keith back, or not?” Lance pressed.

“There’s no guarantee that Keith will be there with his lion,” Allura explained. “However, if we can somehow uncorrupt his lion, we can use his bond with it to find him.”

“What did that laser even do to it?” Lance wondered aloud. “I thought lasers were supposed to burn things, or something.”

“Yeah, that actually got me thinking on how it worked,” Hunk added. “Remember that one time at the Garrison when Mr. Hoffman’s room was shut down?”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Lance responded. “Did they ever explain what happened?”

“Actually. Yeah!” Hunk said. “After I nagged Iverson for a while, he finally told me Mr. Hoffman’s nuclear generator broke. You know, the one with the lasers behind the glass?”

Pidge nodded. "I always wondered why he kept something like that so casually. That model was still in its experimental stage."

"Well, anyways, it apparently broke the glass and the lasers and stuff leaked into the room. Tons of radiation and all! But the weirdest thing was that none of the technology in the room was damaged. It just didn't work anymore! So, I was thinking maybe something like that happened to his lion?"

"That...actually makes a lot of sense," Pidge said thoughtfully. "I had been considering what that laser was made of, and my strongest theory was that it was a particle ray of some sorts. That way, it could leak into the lion and corrupt its system."

"I've seen motherships employ this sort of offense," Allura said. "The extent of damage, however, is usually that enemy ships completely stop working. I've never seen it make a machine go completely rogue."

"Is there any way to undo the damage?" Shiro asked.

"If I can find a way to speed up the half-life process, if that's even possible, maybe," Pidge muttered as she opened her laptop. "Coran, do you have anything nuclear I can work with?"

"Heh, funny you should say it, we might have some drivers that speed up a chemical's half-life cycle!" Coran laughed.

"Really?" Her eyes lit up. "That's a thing?"

"Of course! I'm honestly surprised your planet hasn't figured out how to do it yet!"

"How convenient," Lance chuckled.

Coran began walking out of the control room, with Pidge following him. "Come along, Pidge! I'll show you how the drivers work!"

"As soon as you get the drivers working, we'll go out and find Keith," Allura told Pidge, who looked back at her and gave her a thumbs up. She left the room, and as Coran blathered on about his days as a cadet learning about the drivers, she could only focus on the heavy weight on her shoulders. She wasn’t particularly depressed but rather determined at this point, now that there was a chance to save Keith. After all, he saved her from that laser, so it was her turn to save him.


	4. Intermission: Puppet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith ends up in a place he'd never want to be in, with the people he'd never want to be with. Unfortunately for him, he won't be coming home anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe keith is fucking dead.  
> lol no, the good boy's alive but buckle up kiddos cus this is gonna be one hell of a chapter.

Streaks of purple, the shuffling of feet, distant murmuring, shaky breaths.

 

Shaky breaths, that was all he could control.

 

Other than that, he could only walk like a drone. Or really, he was forced to walk. He wasn't sure if it was out of his own will to walk. Who might've been controlling him, he still wasn't sure. He wasn't sure what was under his control, really.

 

As he walked down the dark corridors, he was flanked by two, tall Galra. With his black, tinted helmet on, he couldn't get a good look at them, but he could only feel their presence, pushing him onwards.

 

No, he was walking on his own. He had the will to come with them, he wanted to be there with them. He wasn't sure what he was thinking, his stomach felt sick over the fact that he couldn't tell what were his thoughts and what weren't. So far, everything felt hazy, and he was too exhausted and too much in pain to decipher it all. At this point, all he could do was wait for what was coming next.

 

They turned the corner, and up ahead he could see a large room. Only when they finally entered it he saw it was a throne room, the windows revealing never-ending space and in front of it, a lavish throne with a long carpet rolled out. Guards lined the room, and in the center stood King Zarkon, along with a woman with white hair, blue skin, and glowing yellow eyes. She stood hunched over with a cloak hanging over her head, and though she had no pupils, Keith could feel her eyes staring directly at him. She smirked, and no matter how much Keith wanted to look away he just couldn't.

 

The Galra soldiers stopped in front of the two, and so did Keith. They bowed to Zarkon and backed away. When he looked upon Keith, with great condescension and all, the paladin suddenly felt the urge to kneel. He did so, he wanted to, why did he want to?

 

"You managed to capture the red lion and his paladin," Zarkon's deep voice rumbled. "For low-ranked captains, you seem to be competent."

 

"Thank you, King Zarkon," one of the captains said.

 

"Of course, none of this could be done without me," the woman chuckled, approaching the paladin with an air of satisfaction. "Infusing my magic with that particle ray was an effective course of action."

 

"Of course, Haggar," the other captain murmured.

 

Keith's breath caught in his throat when he heard Haggar's voice. It was the same voice he heard in his lion, how could she have been there with him?

 

She pulled off his helmet and tossed it to the side, then she pulled his hair sharply to take a good look at him as if to admire her handiwork. He quietly grunted, but felt no need to resist. It was no different than what he felt at the moment, anyway. He constantly felt like there was an iron hook lodged inside his skull, pulling him back. Every time he questioned his thoughts or tried to resist, the pulling would become harder.

 

"You've done well to quell this paladin, Haggar," Zarkon said. "But one paladin is not enough, we will need to use your new ability to capture the rest of Voltron."

 

"Of course, sire," she replied bemusedly. "But not to worry, the ray embedded it with its own energy. All it will take is this one paladin and his lion to retrieve the rest."

 

"Very well," Zarkon looked back at Keith, he could feel his power all too well. "You know what to do, paladin. Obey and give me the rest of Voltron."

 

Keith's instinct to resist, to question all of this, kept diminishing. It diminished until only his compliance was left, and from then on he could only be Zarkon's puppet, a willful puppet. He only thought to obey, he nodded.


	5. This Isn't You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team flies off to the dwarf planet Nekar to find Keith and the dark lion and find a mysterious warehouse where they find something worse than what they were expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for posting this chapter so late! school had me incredibly busy but i'm finally free to continue! thank you so much for reading and i hope you enjoy what i have in store for you. ;)

Pidge's lion circled around Nekar, a dark gray dwarf planet with multiple satellites, presumably to record any ships and storage coming in. But because of the high amount of Galra on this planet, the team opted to enter on Pidge's lion due to the invisible shield she constructed on it. They were able to enter it smoothly without having to deal with security.

 

"Call us if anything goes wrong, we'll come in for backup," Allura told them on the speaker.

 

"Alright, princess," Shiro replied.

 

"Anything for you, my dear," Lance flirted. He heard her scoff over the speaker at his comment. Nailed it.

 

They entered the atmosphere and scanned the buildings for the right one, and eventually, the scanners picked up the presence of Keith's lion at a large warehouse. So, they landed on the roof and filed out of the lion to the side where they'd hopefully be less visible to any soldiers or guards nearby. Underneath the ledge of a higher part of the roof was a window into the inside, a perfect place to sneak in.

 

"Hunk, you keep watch here," Shiro ordered him. "Lance, you stake out the place for any potential soldiers while Pidge and I use the driver on the lion."

 

"Phew, sounds good to me!" Hunk sounded relieved. "I mean, that lion was hard enough to face while in space, I can't imagine having to deal with it in person!"

 

Lance laughed. "It's not like we're gonna have to fight the thing," he said. "Unless whoever's controlling the lion wants to tear down the whole place, that is."

 

"Don't get too comfortable," Shiro warned. "Come on."

 

He opened the window slowly to make sure it wouldn't make any noise, and once it was wide enough he motioned for the others to hop in. Lance came in first, he crawled in through the window and hopped onto a runway suspended in the air with wires, and Pidge and Shiro soon followed. Pidge, after looking at her tracker, pointed west for the two to go. Shiro and Lance nodded at each other in silent acknowledgement of Lance staying behind. As Pidge and Shiro went down the stairs, Lance chose to hop off the rails and land on a closed crate below with a loud stomp. Fortunately, he didn't seem to bring any attention to himself, but from below Shiro gave him a warning glance. Lance grinned apologetically, then he carefully made his way down from the crate as to not make any noise.

 

"You know the drill," Shiro told Lance.

 

He nodded, and Shiro and Pidge made their way down the west area of the warehouse. Lance kept his distance as he scouted the area, his bayard was transformed into his blaster just in case he ran into any hostile soldiers. But as he scanned the building, he found that it was mostly devoid of any people. It was strange, this was a part of a military operation, after all, it should've have any sort of guards inside or people working overtime. But really, now that he thought about it, having no guards to worry about made his job easier.

 

Thirty minutes passed, and he was getting bored. He practically explored every corner of the warehouse, and yet there was no sort of challenge to face. No soldiers to fight, no "interesting weapon," nothing. It just seemed like the crates spanned for miles. He didn't see any sign of Pidge or Shiro either, so he assumed they found the lion. And as there was nothing interesting to look at from where he was, he found it to be appropriate to go after them, see how they'd use this "driver" thing. Not like he'd much of help, but hey, he was the team's sharpshooter, right? It's always good to have someone like that around!

 

As soon as he decided to turn the corner, he heard footsteps. Immediately, he pointed his gun at the direction of where he heard it, down a long path decorated with crates. He saw a figure in black armor, too far away for him to be able to see his face clearly, but from the looks of it, the figure didn't seem to be Galra. Still, he could never be too careful in a time of war.

 

"Hey Lance, you guys done yet?" Hunk's voice reverberated in the speakers in Lance's helmet.

 

"Almost, we'll be out in a sec," he replied. He was about to ask Hunk if he ran into any trouble when his attention turned back to the figure, who had gotten closer. Observing them, he happened to notice their black mullet, and their familiar, moody scowl.

 

Wait a minute.

 

"Keith?" Lance called hopefully, lowering his gun. "I knew it! You're alive!"

 

Keith didn't slow down his pace, nor did he even seem to acknowledge what Lance said. He just kept walking with that same scowl.

 

Lance could tell something was off. "Uh, Keith? Buddy? You doing alright?"

 

He took out his bayard and transformed it into his sword, scratching it on the crates as he walked by them.

 

Sweat beaded down Lance's head when he realized what this meant, he pointed his gun at Keith hesitantly. "Keith, you're scaring me."

 

Keith raised his sword and suddenly dashed at Lance, causing him to panic and shoot at him several times. Lucky for both of them, he missed, but his brief moment of faulty aiming proved to be fatal as Keith quickly unarmed Lance with a sharp nudge with his elbow. He tackled him, and soon he had him pinned down as he knelt down on his chest.

 

Unarmed and helpless, he was frightened by the boy he called his teammate, frightened by the prospect of him being at Keith's mercy. "Keith, think about you're doing," he begged. "This isn't you!"

 

Keith just seemed to stare at him, or at least Lance thought he did. He couldn't tell what he was thinking behind the black lens of his helmet that seemed to only mirror back Lance's fearful expression. He didn't know why, but this frightened him more than the sword in Keith's hand. Lance knew him well, he usually knew when those cool, purple moody eyes of his were angry, or sad, or even happy! But this time, he couldn't read any sort of expression, which only gave Keith a menacing presence. This almost made him seem less human.

 

Keith raised his sword as if to strike at him, and Lance turned his head away to brace for impact, when he heard a loud blast, and the weight on his chest disappeared. When he looked back, he saw that Keith had been knocked off him and was slumped on the ground with smoke rising out of his armor. He looked where the blast came from, only to see Hunk with his blaster out, his was expression was of shock and panic.

 

"Are you okay!?" Hunk rushed to Lance's side and held out his hand for support, to which Lance grabbed ahold of it and got up.

 

"Keith...that's Keith..." Lance murmured, pointing at him shakily.

 

"What?" Hunk looked at Keith in disbelief. "You're meaning to tell me that after disappearing, Keith came back just to kill you?"

 

"Who else would have that stupid mullet?" Lance shot back.

 

"Okay, geez."

 

Lance noticed that Keith, who was slumped on the ground, slowly getting up and reaching for his sword. He couldn't express shock as much as he could express dread at the thought of having to fight Keith, and not just in a sort of training session. He braced himself for another attack, and once Keith got up he attacked him with his blade yet again. Lance was able to dodge in time and aimed to fire at Keith, but Keith deflected the blast and swung back. Lance received the brunt of the attack on his gun and moved back to make more space between them.

 

They heard footsteps down the hall, and when they turned their heads they saw that Shiro had arrived. He seemed to recognize Keith, for his mouth was agape with shock. It seemed like everyone in the room had frozen in that moment until Keith rushed at Shiro with his blade and tried to strike him. Thinking quickly, Shiro enacted his prosthetic, which glowed a bright purple as he met Keith's sword with it.

 

Keith pulled his sword back and struck again and again, Shiro having to block every blow. They dueled for some time, with their weapons constantly meeting in large sounds metal clanging. It didn't take long for Lance realize that somehow, Shiro met his match. He wasn't sure how, but in a matter of one day Keith improved his sword fighting skills exponentially to point that he could potentially beat the one he considered a mentor. Lance didn't know what Keith's intentions were, but he got the feeling that if he beat Shiro, he'd be able to continue with something that would be detrimental to the team as a whole.

 

He pointed his gun at Keith reluctantly and shot at his back. Keith lost his balance, and Shiro, seeing open opportunity, sliced at his chest armor and knocked his blade out of his hand. During the time Keith was stunned, Shiro took his arm, pulled it back so the boy's back faced him, and kicked at his calves to knock him to his knees. As he held his arm back to the point that the wrong move would dislocate his shoulder, he held his glowing prosthetic to his neck to subdue him.

 

"Keith," Shiro finally spoke. "What did they do to you?"

 

He didn't respond, he stayed where he was, though it felt like he would bolt at any moment.

 

"Shiro, how did you know to come?" Lance asked him.

 

"I heard the blasts, so I came to see what was happening," Shiro said. "I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting this."

 

"Where's Pidge?" Hunk asked.

 

"She's still installing the drivers to the lion," Shiro replied. "Once she gets back we'll take Keith and the lion to the ship and see what we can do."

 

"Good," Hunk said. "Then, we can finally get out of here. I just get the sense that there's too much bad luck here!"

 

Lance nodded, not taking his eyes off of Keith. He couldn't shake off this eerie feeling that though he was certain that it was his teammate he was looking at at that moment, it still wasn't really him. Something was different within him, though it was obvious to the team that Keith wasn't in the right state of mind. But Lance didn't know what it was that caused this. He couldn't tell, his eyes were covered by his tinted lens, making him seem less familiar. He wanted to see for himself what was wrong, and he got the feeling he'd know better if he could just take off that helmet. He approached Keith, who didn't budge from his movement, and wrapped his hands around the helmet, and pulled it off.

 

Keith looked like himself alright, from the black mullet down to the intense, violet eyes. Except, his eyes weren't quite right. His sclera were two shades darker, as if a shadow casted over his eyes. It felt like the shadow morphed his entire face, as Keith seemed to only glower at Lance, not at all taking his eyes off him. He was used to Keith having moody expressions all the time, but this time it looked foreign to him. It was almost like Keith didn't recognize him, and it sent shivers down Lance's spine.

 

"Can we fix him?" He muttered worriedly.

 

"We'll find a way once we get back," Shiro didn't sound confident, but Lance could tell that as the leader he was only trying to stay strong for the team. The black paladin turned on the headset and spoke into the speaker. "Pidge? What's your status?"

 

There was mostly status, along with heavy breathing, but other than that it was hard to understand what Pidge was trying to understand.

 

"Pidge? What's happening?" Shiro pressed on.

 

Lance couldn't help but notice that Keith was smirking a little bit, and soon after he heard distant, heavy thuds. He tensed up, and just a few seconds later he heard Pidge yelling in the distance as she ran to them.

 

"It's a trap! Get out of here!" She shouted frantically, waving her arms.

 

Suddenly, the area around them was glowing, and he looked up just in time to see the dark lion's giant face in front of them, with its laser about to be fired. Shiro, Hunk, Lance, and Keith jumped out of the way right before the ground was scorched by its laser. Lance landed with a thud, and when he looked up, he saw Keith get up and hop into the lion's maw. He looked back at Lance for a brief moment before disappearing into it.

 

"Come on, dude!" Hunk suddenly grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him up, almost dragging him as they ran through the warehouse and to the steps leading to the runway they arrived upon before. They got onto the runway just in time before the dark lion blasted another laser that destroyed the stairs. That made the team much more pressed to get to the window and out of the warehouse as quickly as possible. Soon enough, they got into the green lion and Pidge flew it off, doing so right before the dark lion burst through the warehouse ceiling.

 

"Pidge, don't confront him!" Shiro told her. "We were an equal match last time with just four lions, our chances will be lower with just one lion."

 

"Got it!" Pidge drove her lion up into the atmosphere, with the dark lion hot on her their tail, and eventually, they were out of the dwarf planet's atmosphere.

 

"Princess, prepare the teledovs, we have to wormhole out of here," Shiro said into the speaker. "The mission failed."

 

"I'm on it," Allura replied. "Get in the hangar as soon as possible!"

 

Dodging the stray blasts that would come their way, they flew back to the ship and into the safety of the hangars. Soon after, the ship went into a wormhole and escaped the area. Now that the team was out of danger and could let go of their breaths, they filed out of the lion to head to the control room, but Lance stayed behind.

 

"Lance, are you coming?" Hunk asked.

 

"Yeah, just gimme a minute," Lance replied, not looking back at his friend.

 

Hunk gave Pidge a questioning side-glance, who shrugged and walked out of the lion with him following her. And Lance was left to his own devices to think over what happened that day. He had just lost an important teammate, someone who he'd depend his life on. Whatever happened to him, Lance guessed that he couldn't help but do what he did, but nevertheless it still left a sour taste in his mouth that he nearly had to fight to the death with Keith.

 

Christ, Keith tried to kill him...

 

Lance meant for there to be a rivalry between the two of them, but he didn't mean it like this.

 

 


	7. Taking Matters Into My Own Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the failure of the mission to the dwarf planet Nekar, Pidge decides to go behind her team's backs and take matters into her own hands out of frustration of her inability to help Keith, even if it means risking her own life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!! i'm terribly sorry for the wait, real life has got me incredibly busy! anyways, i hope the wait was worth it with this new chapter, thank you so much for reading!! <3

It was hard to focus.

It felt pointless at this point, if all of Pidge's hard work and focus was for nothing, if it wasn't going to help the team at all.

Research, research, research. She spent so much time typing into her laptop that her fingers were going numb. She wasn't even paying attention to what she was typing anymore, not that it mattered, but she had to do something to put her mind at ease. And for what? Just another failure, she'd keep failing her friends and she'd keep running into dead ends. Nothing she researched seemed to get her answers. The heat within her just rose every time she found nothing that could help her or Keith, to the point that she lost her temper and dropped her laptop, letting it clunk on the ground, and almost kicked it in anger. But she stopped herself, mainly because that was delicate equipment that could never get replaced, what was she  _ thinking?  _ So instead, to ease her own rage, she just grabbed a pillow and hit her laptop with it violently.

"Woah, Pidge! Calm down!" She heard Lance tell her, which only seemed to worsen her anger. But she was too tired to get into some sort of tirade, so she just chucked her pillow aside.

"You doing okay, Pidge?" Hunk asked.

She didn't look back to see his face, but she guessed he looked worried; she didn't blame him, after all, she didn't act like this often. "Yeah," she replied. "Just running out of answers, I guess."

"You don't look okay," Lance retorted.

"I take it this is something that can't be solved easily," Hunk remarked. "I mean, the universe never lets us save the day quickly, anyway."

Pidge looked back at her two friends. Just as she thought, they looked just as tired as she did. Hunk already had bags under his eyes, while Lance leaned his head back on the couch. They probably got as much sleep as her, which was none, but it was to be expected. There was too much fear in the air of what was to come. After all, this was nothing they never encountered before, and there was nothing set as a precedent for them to know how to solve the problem. So, all they could do was think, ponder, fret, and hope.

But there was not a lot of hope to go around, anyway

Hunk would usually be in the kitchen cooking to ease his anxiety, but it looked Lance needed someone to talk to. And, well, Hunk usually was the guy to go to when you needed to talk about your problems, instead, he stayed in the lounge to keep him company. Shiro was off elsewhere, the recent events being too much for him to take at once. Keith was like a brother to him, and having a brother try to kill you can be, well, too tough to handle on a normal basis. So, he needed some solitude to think things out. He was probably wandering down the corridors, or training, or maybe in his room. He seemed to make a habit of disappearing, lately.

Maybe some solitude was what Pidge needed.

"I'm going to my room," she announced, picking up her laptop and walking off.

"Are you sure you don't just want to talk about it?" Hunk asked her.

She waved him off. "I'm sure, just need to clear my head."

Walking down the corridor and getting to her room, she then opened the doors and entered her room, immediately plopping on the bed and opening her laptop yet again. She breathed a small sigh of relief over her laptop not being broken by her pillow tirade. But the relief didn't last for long as she was brought back to having to think deeply on an apparently unsolvable problem. The drivers were supposed to clear up radiation, right? If that didn't work, what else could there possibly be that could do it? They seemed to only be an Altean invention, anyways, so there didn't seem to be other civilizations that had something like the drivers. So, who could hold the answers? Only the Galra seemed to know how to operate the radiation—

Wait a minute.

If only the Galra knew how the cannon worked, then they obviously had information or some sort of code on how it worked, or how to disable the effects. With some sort of powerful weapon like that, they'd clearly keep it as a top secret, hidden within the higher-ups. So, the only way to retrieve that information would be to steal the files directly from the main ship.

"Oh, jeez," Pidge breathed to herself. "This might be the dumbest idea I've ever come up with."

They barely came out alive when they rescued Allura from the main ship, and they came into that with all five lions plus the main ship. So, going in with only one lion was five times as risky. But coming in with the entire fleet would be basically like offering Voltron to the Galra Empire, right? So, losing one lion would be better than losing all of the lions. Not that’d she let that happen, but the risk would be much smaller if only she took her lion on the mission. And she installed that invisibility cloak on her lion too. She was the perfect paladin to do this, she could sneak in, somehow grab the files, and get out of there as fast as she can. But it was risky to go in there by herself. It’d be smart to have some backup.

Hunk? Hell no, he’d opt out of it in less than a tick and nag her to do the same. Lance? Maybe, he’d be reckless enough to say yes, as well as him being the sharpshooter, but with him being the first one to find Keith in a weird, brainwashed state, he probably wouldn’t be emotionally prepared to pull off such a risky mission. Shiro was her best bet, but honestly...he’d probably say no. There’s no way he’d let her go into the belly of the beast, so even if she bothered asking, he would do anything to convince her to cancel the mission. But she couldn’t think of any other option to save Keith, so her best bet was to go alone.

Ugh, so that meant she had to go behind everyone’s backs. Honestly, the last time she tried to leave, it did not go well with the team, so going on her own without telling them would make her come off as flaky. But, she’d come back with the plans anyways, so that’d make up for it, right? Maybe she’d get scolded at first, but it didn’t matter as long as she did something for the good of Team Voltron. Saving Keith was more important than some scuffle.

Well, everyone seemed to be distracted at this moment in time, so right then would be the best time to leave. Pidge slipped on her paladin armor and shoved her laptop into her bag before going out the door and into the hallways. In case she happened to draw any attention, she crept along the corridors as quietly as possible. If she got caught, there’d be no way any of them would let her go on this mission. It’d be over before it even started. So, pausing every time she thought someone was coming, she eventually got to the hangars. She crept to her lion and managed to get into its jaw before she heard footsteps.

Shit. Horrible timing.

Pidge didn’t bother to look back as she entered her lion and got into the control room. Sitting down in her seat, she firmly gripped the controls and brought her lion to life.

As she flew the green lion, she heard Shiro yell, “Pidge! What are you doing!?”

‘Sorry, Shiro, but I have to do this,’ she thought as she steered her lion around and flew out of the hangars and into space.

Without the teledovs from the ship, Pidge was at a disadvantage in speed for getting to Zarkon’s ship on time, and while she wouldn’t be in a hurry to get there, arriving at the ship would be more risky now that Shiro was aware of her absence. There was a chance that halfway through her journey the rest of Voltron would catch up to her, so she had to go as fast as possible before that could happen.

“Pidge, what you’re doing right now is insanely dangerous, get back to the ship immediately—” She took off her helmet so she wouldn’t have to hear the rest of what Shiro had to say. She had to focus at that moment to track Zarkon’s ship. She looked through data she collected of records of different planets documenting Galra activity around it. It was when she found a planet in a system with a lot of Galra activity, she knew where to go. And lucky for her, it was a planet they had visited before. Not too far, either. Wait, Zarkon was that close? It was a miracle they didn’t run into each other yet.

It felt like a day had passed before Pidge finally arrived in the system. She could see Zarkon’s ship in the distance, so she activated the invisibility cloak on her lion before flying a bit closer. Roaming around from a safe distance, she thought over what her plan would be. She’d have to sneak in, of course. But the question was from where? Recounting the blast that hit Keith, she knew that it came from the main cannon, so obviously, she’d have to come in from somewhere near it. Then, she’d find the main control room for the cannon, look for the data and take it, then go back to where she came from. It was easier said than done, but that was her best bet at doing this.

She flew closer to the ship and landed near the main cannon. Then she put on her helmet, activated the mask on it, and exited the lion. She landed on the ship and went a few feet away from her lion before activating her bayard and cutting a hole into the ship. After a moment of hesitation, she hopped into the hole and landed in a corridor. There was no more time to afford for hesitation, she was in the belly of the beast.

Pidge crept around the corridors, only pausing and hiding at corners when she heard soldiers coming. She made sure to keep an eye out for any signs of equipment being carried around by them and paid attention to where they were being taken. It was when she noticed most of them were being taken west that she knew which direction to take. Hopping from one corner to another, she only ever moved when she was certain she was alone, but company wouldn’t stop her from getting to where she needed to be.

In a moment where she hid in a corner, she overheard a conversation between two soldiers.

“You’re sure there are no cracks in this?” One soldier asked.

“Yes sir, I switched to a more sturdy container. The quintessence is well-secured.”

“Good, take it to the main control deck.”

Once Pidge heard the footsteps fade away and she was certain they were gone, she moved ahead to where she heard the soldier with the quintessence headed off to. She eventually arrived at the entrance to what she assumed was the main control deck, as she saw several soldiers surrounding it, as well as a few droids. Lucky for her, the one nearest to her was a droid, and it looked like the soldiers were in a line to get in, so she hid behind the droid as the lion became shorter, inching a little bit closer until the droid in front of her was the next to enter. This was when she hopped into the cqart that carried the quintessence so she wouldn’t get noticed by any soldiers inside. She only counted two voices murmuring to each other as she entered the room, and breathed a small sigh of relief.

She felt the cart stop, and footsteps left the room. At this point, all she could do was wait until she was alone before moving onto her next course of action. It took a lot longer than she expected, dragging onto almost an hour. She could feel her muscles cramp up from where she was hiding, and when she heard the door open again she held her breath in the hopes that this would be her cue.

“Haggar requests your audience,” she heard a soldier speak.

“Is it urgent?” Another one asked?

“It would be wise not to keep her waiting,” the first one replied.

“I’m getting tired of this room anyways, let’s go,” the third soldier grumbled.

Footsteps trailed off, and Pidge heard the door slam shut. That was when she realized she was alone, that this was her chance. She let go of her breath and got out from her hiding spot, dashing over to the main computer and plugging in her laptop to whatever outlet she found on the keyboard. She typed in any command words she could think of that would lead her to the right files, and eventually she was lead to a bunch of files that contained instructions of sorts. It was difficult to decipher, but when she put it through a translator in her laptop she picked up words like ‘cannon’ and ‘radiator.’ That was when she knew she found what she was looking for. So, as quickly as possible, she made copies of the files and transferred them to her laptop, urgency making adrenaline flow through her veins. She antsy to get out of there as soon as possible, and once she got a notification stating that the transfer was complete, she immediately unplugged her laptop and hurried to head back to her hiding spot.

Well, she almost made it when the door opening startled her. She jumped when she heard it and braced herself for soldiers coming in, yelling at her, then shooting at her, but nothing else happened. Pidge stared at the entrance in bewilderment, as it seemed like it opened on its own. She waited for someone to enter, or anything to enter, but once nothing else happened she exited the room immediately. Her pace was quick, and it almost seemed like she’d be off scot-free when she heard footsteps behind her. They were close enough that it was too late to hide again, she almost didn’t dare to look at who it was. But when she looked back, her heart lurched when she realized it was Keith. His eyes were covered by the lens of his helmet, but she still knew it was him. His bayard had activated into a sword, and his pace towards her slowly quickened as he prepared to strike. She planned to run from him, but as he got close to her she knew she had to dodge one way or another.

Keith ran towards her and aimed to strike down at her, but Pidge quickly dodged his attack by flinging herself away from him, accidentally landing in some sort of storage unit in the process. Taking a few steps backwards within the light of the doorway, she stared into the entrance to see if Keith would come back. Her hand hovered above her bayard at her side cautiously, her heartbeat made her feel like her heart would jump out of her chest.

Keith jumped in from the hallway and slammed into Pidge, he reached for her wrist and pinned it against the wall with a deathly grip. She cried out in pain and tried to retrieve her arm from him, but with his tight grip, she was deemed trapped under him. She felt the intensity of his gaze upon her, and frankly, it caught her off guard in a brief moment. But when she came to her senses, she grabbed her bayard and activated the blade, and slashed at Keith’s chest. As electricity coursed through his body, he let go of Pidge instinctively and moved away from the pain. She took her chance and bolted from the room, turning a corner and running through the corridor. It didn’t take long for Keith to recover and chase after her, and she found herself having to dodge the many times he threw his sword at her, arising the sensation that her head would be decapitated at any moment.

Strangely enough, halfway through the chase Keith suddenly turned the corner into another hallway, leaving Pidge alone for the time being. She’d normally be puzzled by this, but she had no time to ponder where he went, all she was concerned with was getting the hell out of there. Swerving through hallways, she traced back her steps to where she came from and eventually came to the hole at the ceiling she carved. Activating the mask on her helmet for oxygen, she turned on the jetpack on her back and flew out of the hole and back onto the outside of the ship.

Pidge ran to her lion, deactivated the invisibility cloak she had over it, and quickly entered it. She sat down in her chair and held onto the controls firmly as she brought her lion to life. “C’mon girl, don’t fail me now,” she breathed, steering her lion out of its resting place and into space.

She made it a few yards out into space, determined to get away as fast as she could from the ship. It was then that she saw the dark lion rise from the horizon, and in a split-second she suddenly saw a bright burst of light cover the entirety of sensors as she felt force knock she and her lion over violently. As the light vanished and she quickly came to her senses, she noticed that electricity sparked from the controls. She rigidly moved levers to slowly but surely move her lion to get a better view of her environment to get a better handle on what was going on. She noticed a light coming from the dark lion that was dying down, and in putting the pieces together she realized what had happened.

She had been hit by the radiator. And this time, it came from Keith’s lion.

“No…” Pidge muttered in horror, her eyes widened with fear as she desperately hung onto the controls. “No, no, no, no…”

She knew what the ray did to Keith, she knew what it could do to her, and she knew the possible outcomes of that could doom Voltron. No, it’d doom her teammates, it’d doom her. She wasn’t sure if she could stop it, but she’d fight like hell to do so.

“Pidge!” She suddenly heard Shiro’s voice in her speaker, and hope sparked in her chest when she saw his lion in the distance. “I’m here, are you okay!?”

“Shiro, thank God you’re here!” She replied in a hurry, unsure of what to do with her hands in the wave of panic that settled over her and her lion. Then, it suddenly hit her: her lion was corrupted, and with that being said, the files she stole would be lost if she didn’t figure out something quick. “Shiro, I took the plans for the cannon, I’m sending them back to you! Take them to the ship!”

“Pidge, I’m not leaving you! We’ll find a way out of this!”

Pidge plugged her laptop in to her control panel, frantically uploading the plans to the system. A screen popped up above the control panel, and as glitchy as it was, she sent the plans to Shiro as soon as possible before the screen became too distorted to use. “I sent the files to you, and I’ll figure a way out of this, alright?”

Shiro’s voice came through, but not his words. His voice became distorted and undecipherable, making it impossible for Pidge to understand. She was alone yet again, and the feeling of it sank on her shoulders. “Shiro!” She called again, but it was no use.

An idea popped into her head: the driver. Of course! She dug through her backpack, brushing through equipment until she finally found the driver. Safety was just at her fingertips, she pulled the plug out that connected her laptop to insert the driver. But as she did so, electricity shot out and jolted her, making her drop the driver and yell out in pain. Conveniently, the darkness began to settle in on the lion, leading to the green lion shaking around sporadically and violently. This caused Pidge to fall out of her chair right after the shock. She shakily tried to get back on her chair and clung to it like it was her lifeline as her lion jerked around. As she grunted with each violent impact, it began to set in that she was running out of options.

Panic settled in her mind, panic and fear. “Shiro! Are you still there!?” She called out desperately, but to no avail. She still could only hear static on the speakers. She began to tear up as her hope diminished. “Anyone, please! Don’t leave me here!” She cried out.

The lights flickered in the back of the room and they slowly went out. Pidge turned around when she noticed this, realizing that it was getting darker within her lion. Soon, she was enveloped in the darkness, the stars outside being the only source of light for her.

Her fear only amplified as her eyes widened, the uncertainty of what was to come lurched onto her nerves to make her tension increase. “Oh, no…”

The darkness somehow crept onto her armor, as blackness rose from her feet and slowly covered her. “No, no, no, no…”

Her breathing grew heavy, her eyes frantically scanned her surroundings for something, anything that could help her, when they finally landed on a pair of golden eyes in front of her that certainly weren’t there before. She felt her helmet get pulled off and a pair of claws wrap around her head, and she felt her breath grow cold as if oxygen was sucked out of the room. It felt like an eternity passed between she and the golden eyes until electricity sparked at those fingertips. It escalated until it crackled through her skull, lighting her body with hot pain.

Pidge screamed until her lungs grew raw.


	8. Some You Leader You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With both Keith and Pidge now missing, Team Voltron now must make sense of the documents Pidge sent Shiro before her demise and find a way to use them to save the team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello all! thank you for tuning in for the next chapter! i'd like to also add that i'll be making voltron animatics, shitposts, and pmv's in my youtube channel! here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5dlH4Ha6N65qPIPnctq4A
> 
> i may also animate this fic if you're all interested! thanks again! <3

One lion gone rogue, two lions missing.

Hunk and Lance waited at the holodeck anxiously as Allura and Coran tried to track down the missing lions. Things didn't look so well for Team Voltron, and with only two lions left their defenses were down. Not to mention the corruption laser could potentially take down the missing paladins, and with not a word heard from Shiro or Pidge, this was a real possibility. Allura managed to find that Shiro was coming back, but with the possibility of the Galra knocking at their front door at any moment, they were anxious for him to come back. After all, this was a terrible time for him to be out in space on his own.

Hunk sat down in the side as he watched Allura scan through the map of nearby planets, as he really had no option to be anywhere else. He'd normally be in the kitchen or in his room if he was stressed out, but he couldn't miss any news on Shiro or Pidge's whereabouts. So, all he could do was wait. It was frustrating, his nerves were so tense yet he couldn't do anything with his hands to ease them. With so few options, all he could do was rub his arms nervously or clasp his hands together hard to keep himself calm. He hated doing nothing, but most of all he hated being stuck with these emotions that only made things worse.

The doors slid open, and Shiro finally walked in. Hunk jumped to his feet and rushed to his side along with Lance to see if he was okay. Hunk was about to say something along the lines of, "are you okay?" But he noticed Shiro's expression, and that was enough to answer his questions. He looked downwards, and his eyes were sunken and filled with defeat. Hunk felt enormous empathy for his leader, his solemn and sullen air hitting him in the chest, but the defeatist emotions soon turned to anxiety when he realized there was still a paladin missing.

"Shiro, where is Pidge?" Hunk asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

Shiro remained silent for a few minutes, those minutes seemed to drag on for an eternity. His brows furrowed, and he finally spoke. "Pidge...she was hit by the laser. The Galra have her now."

"Lance's eyes widened with disbelief. "No...no, they couldn't have!"

"First Keith, now Pidge," Hunk murmured, his voice quiet but shaken. "What are we gonna do?"

"I tried everything, but there was nothing I could do," Shiro muttered. "I'm sorry."

Lance held onto Shiro's shoulder. "You were there with her, right? There must've been something you could do to save her!"

"Her lion was out of control," Shiro explained. "I could only speak to her from a safe distance, but I couldn't reach her, it was too dangerous."

"Bullshit! You were just hiding in the safety of your own lion!" Lance spat. "Some leader you are, not even helping your own teammate!"

"Lance, there was nothing I could do," Shiro defended himself, Hunk could tell that Lance's accusations were getting to him.

"Do you even care about her!?"

"Lance!" He shouted.

"Lance, that's enough!" Hunk finally got in between Lance and Shiro and pushed them apart, already seeing how worse the two's friendship could get if things escalated any further. He looked at the blue paladin angrily. "How could you say something like that? Shiro did everything he can, but we still have the Galra hunting us down with our own teammates, so what we don't need right now is throwing around accusations like that!"

Lance glared at Hunk, clearly wanting to say more. But he looked back at Shiro, then behind him at Allura and Coran, who stared at him apprehensively. He then could see that he was alone in the confrontation. He scoffed and pulled away from his teammates, walking out of the room. "Fine," he muttered bitterly.

"I'm really sorry about that," Hunk murmured.

Shiro looked shaken by the confrontation, and Hunk was afraid that he wouldn't forgive Lance. But then he sighed and replied, "it's fine. This whole ordeal is putting us on the edge, anyway."

"What was Pidge doing at Zarkon's ship all by herself, anyway?" Allura asked Shiro, stepping down from the platform towards him.

"She was trying to steal information on the cannon," Shiro replied.

"I can why she'd want to do something like that," Allura said, concern etched on her face as she touched her chin in pensive thought. "If only she'd come to me for help, then maybe we wouldn't have lost both her and the plans she might have taken."

Shiro's eyes raised at what Allura mentioned. "Wait a minute, she didn't lose the files," he told her. "She sent them to me!"

He rushed out of the room, leaving the rest of the Voltron team to wait. Hunk gave Allura a quizzical look, to which she returned with a shrug. Shiro soon returned with some sort device from his lion t hat looked like a drive. Allura's eyes widened when she saw it.

"Let me have that," she said as Shiro gave her the drive. He and Hunk followed Allura as she rushed to the control board and plugged it into the output, then a screen popped up on the glass. There was a rather large amount of files, and the team would've been clueless on where to start if Pidge hadn't translated the files. They finally decided on a document, a sort of guideline for how the cannon worked, and Allura opened it for them to read.

"Hunk, what does it say about how the cannon works?" Shiro asked him, as he was the team's mechanic, so he trusted him for a well-founded analysis.

Hunk squinted his eyes as he scanned the words of the document, darting back and forth between the paragraphs and the diagram it contained. "It's what Pidge suspected, the cannon used radiation," he replied. "The power was generated from quintessence and, uh, some word I can't pronounce. That one thing is apparently supposed to be used by druids."

"I knew it, the Galra had to be using magic," Allura muttered.

"That explains why the drivers didn't work on Keith's lion," Shiro added.

"But, if we're dealing with magic, then how are we supposed to save Keith and Pidge?" Hunk asked.

"We'll keep digging," Allura responded, not taking her eyes off the document as she continued to read it. "Wait, it also says that the radiation can only directly affect non-organic material."

Hunk cocked an eyebrow. "That doesn't make any sense. If that's the case, then what'd they do to Keith and Pidge?"

"...But radiated inorganic material can affect life forms if they're in constant contact with the material," Allura continued.

"Oh."

"That's it, Pidge and Keith were both in their lions at the time of the blast," Shiro pointed out.

"It makes sense, but Keith was still under its influence even outside of the lion," Hunk added. "The document says 'constant direct contact,' so what would constantly be holding onto Keith to keep it under the radiation's control?"

The team remained quiet for a moment, thinking over Hunk's proposal until Shiro spoke up. "It's his armor. That explains why its color is different."

"So how do we get them out of this?" Hunk asked him. "Do we just take it off? How are we even gonna subdue them long enough to get them out of it?"

"It will be difficult," Allura pointed out. "The last time you guys faced Keith it took three of you to take him down. If Pidge is under the same influence it may take a lot more strength to try and subdue the two of them."

"Yeah that's why I'd rather take as much time as we need," Hunk said nervously. "I want it to be a long time before I have Keith try to cut my head off with those freaky eyes again."

"Alright, let's start planning-" Shiro began, but before he could finish he was cut off by the ship's alarm.

"There's been a breach!" Allura exclaimed as the castle's security feed popped up on the screen, showing the two dark lions entering the hangars.

"What!? Weren't the lions unable to enter the ship!?" Hunk gasped.

"It's not that," Allura said sternly. "Keith's lion was no match for the castle's defenses alone, but now that Pidge's lion accompanies it, they may be able to bypass it and try to infect the other lions!"

The lights suddenly went out, leaving only a dim glow within the walls and the deep murmur of the ship's mechanics.

"Princess, what's going on?" Shiro asked Allura.

"Her eyes widened. "The ship's on lockdown, it shut down its main functioning to focus on preventing the radiation from infecting any of our technology." Despite this, her anxiety still took her on. "But that means nothing can get in our get out. And now, we're nearly defenseless against the dark paladins."


	9. Trapped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The remaining paladins are trapped in a locked-down ship with their brainwashed teammates. As the team is forced to split up and face their friends, Shiro has to face what it means to be a leader, which includes making tough decisions that could lead to a painful sacrifice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! so, so sorry for the late chapter! school has taken up a lot of my time, as well as since this is basically the climax i really had to take my time writing, rewriting, and editing this chapter. i really hope you enjoy this chapter, thank you so much for reading! (and thank you so much for 1500 views!! ^^)

Shiro never thought it'd come to this, but he found himself trapped in a situation where the biggest danger he'd face were his own teammates.

 

Sweat beaded down Shiro's head as he stared at the screen above, barely visible then and there because of the dim lights of the ship, but he could still make out dark figures moving out of the lions in the security feed, warning him that Pidge and Keith were already on the move. He had to do something before any damage was made, and fast.

 

"Hunk, suit up and go find Lance," Shiro ordered. "But you can't go alone. Allura, can you go with Hunk?"

 

"Of course," Allura replied, she turned to Coran. "You’ll keep an eye on the security feed while I'm gone, right?"

 

"But Princess, we've seen how the paladins behave when they're infected," Coran argued. "Wouldn't you be safer staying here with me?"

 

"Hunk will be no safer without me," Allura retorted. "Once Hunk is with Lance I’ll come back is soon as possible, okay?"

 

Coran still looked unconvinced. "Alright, if you insist."

 

"I'll go look for Pidge and see if I can keep her away from Keith," Shiro said. "You two might have a better chance against Keith if he faces you alone."

 

Hunk nodded, fear plastered on his face as he went to leave the room, with Allura following him, he paused before they left and looked at Shiro. "Stay safe, Shiro."

 

He nodded, and soon enough Hunk and Allura were out. He turned to Coran. "Coran, do you know where Pidge could be right now?"

 

Coran squinted his eyes as he stared at the screen, going through different footage. "Well I can tell you they're both already out of the hangars, that's for sure," he remarked. "It's hard to say from the quality of the footage, but from the stature of the figure around the storage area, I'd say Pidge could be in there."

 

"Got it, I'll check back with you later," Shiro said as he left the room and put his helmet back on.

 

As he walked through the dark hallways, his suit lighting up in the dark, he thought of the turmoil of the whole ordeal. The paladins he had to face were his own teammates who looked up to him as their leader, and yet he couldn't help but feel like he failed them. 'Some leader you are!' Lance's voice ringed in his head as Shiro kept his chin up and marched on despite his own doubts. He tried to make himself feel confident and prepared, but he felt dragged down by the fact that the paladins who fell to Zarkon's clutches were also his friends, and children no less! No, this was wrong what happened to them, and it was his responsibility as the pilot of the black lion and the leader of Team Voltron to make things right.

 

His thoughts trailed him until he reached the storage room. That was when he braced himself for what was to come, his senses heightened as he stalked around the storage room. Boxes towered over him, clustering together to make perfect hiding places for the unpredictable paladin, so he kept his eye out for anything that could be unexpected. After all, he knew how Keith acted when they encountered him back at Nekar, Pidge could be just as aggressive in this situation.

 

"Well, well, well."

 

Shiro's heart lurched when he heard her voice, and he turned around to see where it came from. Sure enough, he saw a dark figure that could only be Pidge at the top of a stack of boxes, violet light from the room’s powered down mode illuminating behind her. He could see that she was wearing a helmet, and she hopped down the next box to get closer.

 

"I'd say it's been awhile since we last saw each other, but technically, it's only been a day." She drew closer to him, giving Shiro a better look at what she looked like. Her helmet covered most of her face, and her armor was a different color. Black, like her lion, and its lights glowed purple instead of blue.

 

Pidge smirked when she saw Shiro's tense expression. "What's wrong, Shiro? Aren't you happy to see me?" Her smile didn't falter when he didn't say anything, unsure of how to respond from Pidge's strange demeanor. "Ah, I see what's wrong. It's this 'ol helmet that's covering my face," she took off her helmet. "Better?”

 

Her eyes were dark, just like Keith's, and they were sunken as well, like she didn't get any sleep; her face had little color as well. Needless to say, the way she looked disturbed Shiro. She stepped down from the boxes and approached him with a cool demeanor, as if she had planned this encounter for a long time. "Don't you think this is all irrational? I mean, you've spent days running away from the Empire, yet they're always just around the corner, just like they've always been for over a millenia."

 

Shiro finally spoke up. "Pidge, please, you're not thinking clearly—"

 

"I've been thinking clearly for the first time in my goddamn life, Shiro!" Pidge snapped. "Think about it, we're just a couple of measly humans trying to take down a ten thousand-year old empire that practically conquered almost the entire known universe! Something like that is impossible, we'll get crushed!" She scoffed. "If we can't beat them, we might as well join them, that'll at least assure our survival."

 

"Pidge, think about what you're saying!" Shiro argued. "It was Zarkon who kidnapped your father and your brother, what about your family!?"

 

"They're probably dead, anyways," Pidge retorted bitterly. "And that's what we'll be too if we don't think about this logically. We can't beat something universally big like the Galra Empire, and that's a cold, dark fact." She scoffed, smirking bitterly and holding out her hand to Shiro. "That's why Keith and came here to save 'Team Voltron,' and I don't want to fight my dear friend Shiro, so how about you make this easy on me."

 

Shiro didn't care about how much she wanted to think about this "logically," he'd die before he'd let Zarkon use him as a weapon again. "Pidge, I know you're not in your right mind right now," he began. "But I'm not going to let this spread any further. This is stopping here and now."

 

Pidge shrugged. "If you say so," she said as she activated the blade of her bayard. "But it looks like we're doing this the hard way."

 

She dashed at Shiro and slashed her blade at him, and he quickly activated his prosthetic to block the attack. She went at him again with such an aggressive ferocity that Shiro was barely able to counter it. She was stronger from the infection, just as he expected she'd be, like Keith. And he was caught off-guard just like he was with the red paladin, so he hoped there'd be no more differences between the fight then and the fight now. But Pidge was faster, her reflexes were quicker, so every time her blade landed against Shiro's she'd double back lightning-fast with another blow. His mind raced as he thought of ways to take off her armor without hurting her, and he struggled to balance between that and his focus on the quick blows she battered on him.

 

"Shiro, how're you holding up?" Lance's urgent voice suddenly came up in his helmet's speakers.

 

Shiro had to hide his relief that in a time like this, Lance didn't seem to be holding a grudge against him, but he was also more grateful that Lance appeared to be safe. "I'm fine, I found Pidge and I'm keeping her at bay. Did you find Keith?"

 

"Yeah, Hunk and I are trying to hold him off," he replied; loud blasts could be heard from his side. "Is Pidge okay?"

 

Shiro wasn't sure how to respond. "She's alive, I'll give you that," he told him, grunting as he blocked Pidge's every move. "Lance, listen. I don't have time to explain but you have to take off Keith's armor. It's the only way you'll break the radiation's effect."

 

"Roger!" Lance turned off his speaker, leaving Shiro alone again in his battle.

 

"So, that's your plan?" Pidge scoffed as she threw another blow. "How're you even gonna do something like that?"

 

Shiro didn't answer as he dodged her blows, anxiety creeping up as he realized where she was going with this conversation.

 

"Maybe you'll cripple me?" She tried to slash at him. "Or maybe you'll pry it out of my dead body?"

 

There it was, she prodded exactly at what Shiro was afraid of. At that moment, hearing his fear read out loud caught him off-guard, and Pidge took the opportunity to kick him hard to break his balance. She then shoved him to the ground and knelt over his chest with her blade to his throat.

 

"I warned you, Shiro," Pidge said. "There's no winning in this."

 

As she pulled her blade back and prepared to strike, Shiro's mind raced with anxiety as another realization came over him: she might’ve be right. If he tried to force the armor off her, he could mortally wound her, if he didn't, she'd stay in this brainwashed state. There was no easy option, and if he didn't do something as soon as possible, she would try to brainwash the rest of the team, or as it seemed at this moment, she could kill him. His prosthetic glowed purple as her blade grew near, and the barrage of the thoughts soon snapped into one final decision.

 

Shiro's prosthetic hand darted at Pidge's wrist, covered with armor, and he held onto it with a steel-tight grip as the armor began to heat up and crack. He yanked out the damaged armor off of Pidge's forearm as it spurted electricity from its snapped edges. She screamed from the heat of Shiro's hand and the sudden shock from the armor as she jumped back, letting go of her bayard and giving Shiro room to get up. He stood up as Pidge held onto her burned forearm, glaring at him with fierce intensity.

 

"So, you finally got the balls to do it," she growled. "You're really going through with this?"

 

Shiro didn't answer, he got into a defensive stance and waited for her next course of action. Pidge's eyes darted to the bayard she let slip from her hand, then she made a dash for it, Shiro attempting to take more of her armor with his prosthetic, but she slipped just beneath his fingertips. She finally grabbed her bayard with her uninjured hand and got up, ready to fight. Her nose flared as her blood boiled with the intensity of her anger, she ran at Shiro and tried to deliver a blow at him. Now that he was more focused, more sure of what he had to do, he directed his attention to ducking beneath her attack, reaching for her thigh armor with his heated up prosthetic and ripping out what he could. It fell apart once he tore through it, and in response Pidge yelled out from the pain and stumbled over so that she was on all fours. It hurt to see her like this, but he couldn't stop at this rate, he had to get it over with and save Pidge.

 

Shiro reached forward again rapidly and ripped off her leg armor, over and over, as he blocked out her painful yelling. Pidge rolled over to relieve pressure from her burned legs, she glared at him with agony and pure hatred and gripped her bayard tightly. He couldn't meet her eyes, it was too painful for him, but he had to get the job done. He knelt over her and grabbed her arm, and in turn she tried to swipe at him with her blade. He blocked her attacks with his free hand and slammed her other arm down, holding it to the floor with his knee. Shiro then got to work on ripping out the remaining armor on her upper arm with his glowing prosthetic, shutting his eyes to block out Pidge's distressed expression. He pulled his knee away from her other arm and held onto it with his left hand as he ripped out the remaining armor on that arm.

 

By the time he was done, Pidge stopped struggling. Shiro looked at Pidge's strained expression, fearful that he might have gone too far, but when he noticed her shaky breathing he saw that she appeared to be unconscious. He sighed with relief, not bearing to continue any more. He got off of his friend and stepped back, observing what he had done. All that was left was Pidge's chest armor, as well as her belt and shoes. He was almost done, he was so close, but he needed to stop just once before he could continue. However, as he stood back to collect his thoughts, Pidge stirred where she laid. As it turns out, she was conscious after all. She slowly, but surely got up, holding onto one of her injured arms, her eyes dull from the several severe blows that were thrown onto her body. This was the last thing Shiro wanted, to have to look her in the eyes again as he hurt her. He took a defensive stance as Pidge merely stood there, her eyes dull with exhaustion.

 

"It looks like I lost, huh?" She muttered, her free hand held onto her bayard weakly as she stared at Shiro with a bleak expression.

 

There wasn't much else to say at this point, Shiro knew what would come next. "I'm sorry."

 

Pidge didn't answer, she only did what he dreaded. She charged at him with her blade, even though she barely had any strength left. Shiro sighed and braced for what was to come as he activated his prosthetic and waited for her to come closer. When she finally was close enough, ready to try and throw a blow, he grabbed her chest armor with his prosthetic, crushing it with the heat and intensity of his grip, and pulled it out, causing the whole thing to fall apart. At that moment, Pidge's eyes suddenly fluttered open, changing back to its old color, and she gasped as if she were breathing her first gulp of air after spending so much time underwater. She held onto Shiro as he switched his prosthetic back to normal to go on and gently take off her belt and shoes, leaving behind only her black bodysuit. As she trembled and took heavy breaths, likely from shock, Shiro held her gently.

 

"It's okay," he murmured. "You're fine now, you're free." He pulled her back carefully. "Are you feeling okay?"

 

Pidge's eyes were unfocused, but she looked down as she nodded numbly. Obviously, she wasn't perfectly fine, but it was a step up from where she had been previously. Whatever else was wrong could be fixed by healing pod. All in all, Shiro was glad to have her back.

 

"Good. Now let's go save Keith."


End file.
